Fooled by randomness

I am pretty sure someone searching for Fooled by Randomness on google or bing or any of the other web search engines isnt going to find this blog entry up there. So if you chanced upon this entry, let it at least direct you to two good books. I read the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell followed by the book Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Both books got me thinking about success from a different perspective. Let me talk about what I got out of Outliers first. Malcolm Gladwell talks about hugely successful people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobbs, etc and point out how they could have become who they did because they were born around a certain year and lucked out on many instances. Similarly the month in which hockey players were born could have a more than expected impact on them being successful at their sport measured by having made the national team. I think it is probably true. The question is then, what can we do with that knowledge. Maybe learn to be humble, or think twice before we label someone as successful or unsuccessful.

Now fooled by randomness is also pretty informative. The book again talks about the role luck can have in success and how we label someones flawed strategy as successful solely based on the fact that he was lucky(survivorship bias). Another strategy, probably works better while working with financial markets than with real life is the following.

This is about how when you make a bet you shouldnt confuse probability with expectation. For example if there is a probability that you will make a small amount of money 99.9% of the time but will loose a tonne of money .1% of the time, then you should never make that bet. Because if you do loose you loose everything.

Anyway, both are good books and pretty easy reads.

MIT Sloan

Alright. So I am pretty good with seeing patterns in life! I have been accepted into the Sloan MBA program and intend to take that up.  The director of admissions called me yesterday and let me know. It was really neat. For once I cant think of any way to express beautifully in words what it means to be offered admission at Sloan. Many people asked me how I feel about it. How does it feel to have been offered admission to one of the top 5 MBA programs in the world?

Pretty normal actually. The feeling is not one of effervescent joy. Nor is it pride. If I have to pick an emotion, I would pick gratitude.  When I look at my life over the last 10 years I am amazed. I remember my English teacher at school writing on my answer sheet. “This boy has absolutely no imagination. It seems he cant think beyond a few lines for an essay.” I remember my Geography and History teachers telling my mother. “I pray that he takes his exam seriously, otherwise most probably he will fail the board exams.” I remember my physics teacher saying that “It seems that he has some sort of mental block”. I remember some members of my family telling my mother to take me out of school to an easier syllabus because I might not be smart enough for the ICSE standard in India.

I am grateful to my mother for never giving up hope in her son. I am grateful for her teaching me to spell. Trying to hammer into my thick skull the difference between “weather “and “whether”. I am grateful for her constant encouragement, her incredible belief that somehow at some point I will get serious about life and studies. Above all I am grateful for her being there when I lost hope.

I am grateful to my brother for thinking that his brother can accomplish whatever task he set out for himself. When someone as successful and talented as he thinks highly of you, you really start setting high goals for yourself.

I am grateful to my grandmothers for their prayer. I don’t understand  how the metaphysical world works. But there is something beyond what I can comprehend. Some strange and mysterious force whose power can be harnessed through prayer.

I am grateful to my family and friends for being there for me when I needed them the most. A kind word, a bed to sleep on, some food. At times some of my desires were very basic.

I am grateful to my mentors, professors, (ex)bosses and coworkers. I would never have had the opportunities I had, if they hadn’t prodded me in the right direction, written a letter of recommendation, answered a phone call.

I am grateful to my ancestors who lend me their genes and gave me a healthy mind and body. We stand on the shoulders of giants.

Finally, above all I am grateful to my father who, both while he walked among us and later, watches over me, introduces me to incredible people and finds me fantastic opportunities in life.

Adieu ‘08 or should I say welcome ‘09?

At the stroke of midnight hour, when the world sleeps… ; I get carried away, this is not the time to quote Nehru! Well, about 45 minutes back, that yearly clock turned again, bringing with it the New Year. I wonder if where you are and who you spend that moment with foretells of the forthcoming year? Or are your thoughts and your New Year goals list that tells of the forthcoming year? Oh I hope you have a list…

I spent my moment with my mother watching a movie and trying to call up my brother to wish him. No, I wasn’t at that wild party in NYC nor at that beach in Goa, although both were options had I planned it that way. Does that mean that this year, family is what comes first? Well for some reason thats what comes first all my New Year eves. Last couple of years I was with some of my closest family in Portland, Oregon drinking champaign and playing charades. The years before that I was in Bangalore, Chennai and Trivandrum with some of my closest friends trying to find fun things to do. The years that followed turned out to be quite like that New Year’s moment. Plenty of family and friends in every hour of my need. So this time too, I expect a glorious year ahead!

You know, I have always had very quite New Year eves. Usually a very small group. Less than 10 people. Almost no drinking involved, except that one glass of champaign in Portland. Maybe thats why my years have also been fairly quite. Nothing complicated. I have never had to clean anything up. No regrets!

Moving on. What about those lists? Usually those lists are on paper, lets put this one on an electronic format. Sharing your goals with many people is a sure way to make sure that you commit to your goals. Furthermore, they are always accessible from anywhere in the world. So here goes.

1. Keep in touch with and be close to my family and friends.

2. Finish my toastmasters certification for competent speaker by giving 10 speeches

3. Get into the MIT MBA program, if not apply again to 5 top 10 business schools in the US

4. Join a charity/not for profit organization and hold a position of responsibility

5. Join an entrepreneurship club or find a lecture series on the subject.

6. Find a girl who I can potentially get married to

7. Travel to a country/continent I have never been to

8. Quit my current company or role and do something I am truly passionate about.

9. Read 3 books a month where at least one is about health care IT.

10. Exercise at least 5 days a week for more than half an hour each time

I think Ill be happy with 2009 if these goals are satisfied. “At the stroke of midnight hour, when the world sleeps, I awaken to life and freedom!” — Nehru

“To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield” — Tennyson

“Yet all experience is an arch, wherethro’ gleams that untraveled world, whose margin fades for ever and forever when I move on. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rust unburnished, not to shine in use” — Tennyson

Tattoo and Toastmasters

Unusual experiment 2:

Whats the relationship between tattoo and toastmasters, you may ask. Well nothing except that I am joining a toastmasters club today and going to get tattoo done. Its not that I am afraid of public speaking. I think I am pretty comfortable with it, its just that I am not getting enough opportunities with my current job.

I am not sure about the tattoo. But I am going to go to a tattoo shop. My plan is to get chains and an Aum. The chains depict that life is about following certain rules. The Aum symbolizes clarity and peace. The message is that with clarity and peace you can rise above the shackles that ground you. At least I made that up.

So I joined a toastmasters club. It seems interesting to be able to improve public speaking skills. It also is very interesting to note that the CEO of the company I used to work for previously is in the same club!! Previously I used to see him at a distance. Today we shook hands and exchanged pleasantries.

Another fruitful day comes to a close. And yes I got the tattoo. I am starting to wonder if I can make the next 8 days the most fruitful days of my life. It feels as though anything is possible. Maybe I should start setting some aggressive goals, things that I never did just because I kept procrastinating.

Cant have that

Why is it that we want what we cant have? It could be a person, a job or a thing. But human beings seem to be built to always want things that they cant have. Or is it just me? 

Sometimes we get it, only for a moment. But our psychology is so twisted that, the moment we have it, we no longer want it. So we loose it. And then we want it all over again. I guess men and women are really boys and girls at heart. They want a car or a doll the moment its been taken away. 

Since these days marriage and relationship creep into my mind once in a while, how can you be sure of the person you are getting married to. The moment you have the person, how do you keep from not wanting the person anymore? Maybe that is why you have counsellors and overbearing friends and relatives. Maybe there is more than psychology at play in a marriage. Maybe its convenient to stay married or be in a relationship. 

By convenient, I mean the search for finding the right person was difficult, and now maybe you don’t want to go through that process again. Maybe, you have kids and now their future gives another twist and meaning to your marriage and you don’t want to break it. Maybe there are economic and societal reasons for you to stay married and those reasons overpower the desire for you to get out of the marriage or commitment. 

Well another question is when do you stop looking. I have known people who have found their “life partner” when they were very young and never want to look anymore. How is it that they are so sure that this is the person that they want to spend the rest of their lives with? Is there something more than reason and logic to life. Does love exist outside the world of romantics and idealists?

I digress; coming back to my original question. Why is it that we want the things that we cant have and the moment something is lost, we want it even more? Furthermore, how do you know that you genuinely want that or if it is just psychology taking you for a ride(like the little boy wanting the car when its taken away)? 

Maybe I am over analyzing simple things. Maybe you should be like the zen and go with the flow. There might be forces at play here and you get what you deserve and not want you want.

Values, Mistakes and You

Have you ever questioned who you are? Your fundamental values and principles. Why you make mistakes and what is the relationship between mistakes and values. The past few days I had reasons to question who I have become and analyze myself.

What are values and principles?

They are what you believe in. They are the core of an individual. Things like “I will not steal.” “I will not hurt someone”. “I will respect another human being.” These values may be passed on to you by your parents, teachers and other elders. Sometimes you think and read good books and realize certain qualities in people that you would like to incorporate into your self. So you start believing in these one lines, and they become your  fundamental values. Finally they are inextricably tied to your character. When you talk about someone’s character, you are essentially talking about the set of values that person holds.

What good are values?

Life puts you in situations where you are under stress. Sometimes you might have just lost a job or a loved one. Sometimes you are frustrated with life, sometimes you have wanted something so badly for a long time but couldn’t get it.

Life also throws important decisions at you. Who should you marry? How should you raise your kids? How should you behave with others. At these decision points the only way you can make a decision is by relying on your values. You look at your principles. They are the rules that you define to help you make decisions.

So values are important because when you are in a situation that you have never been in before, you rely on them to help you make decisions. That is why having good values is so important. They help you make the right decisions when you are under stress and when you have to make important ones.

What about mistakes?

Now there are two kinds of mistakes. Say you misspelled a word. That’s a mistake you made because you didn’t know and it probably had very little consequence.

The kind of mistakes I want to talk about are the ones that claw at the core of your being. The ones that you knew you shouldn’t make. The ones where you stepped outside the boundary defined by your values.

Why were those mistakes made? Maybe you forgot about your values. Maybe you let yourself slip. Maybe you gave yourself less credit than you should have. You forgot to realize that you have the power to stick to your values. You knew them, but thought that you were weaker than that. One of the things I believe in is that only a weak person makes mistakes. Well even someone strong can be weak at times.

What to do about the mistakes?

What do you do about something that you did that was totally out of character? I hope you understand the import of those words. Out of character means that you did something that you normally would not do. If the consequences were significant, how do you make sure you don’t do something out of character again? The answer is that you have to constantly keep reminding yourself what your principles are. Furthermore you need to make sure you don’t put yourself in situations where you are weak. Because that is when you are most likely to step beyond your boundaries.

The devil wears prada

I have never been a movie critique in my life, but here is where I pen my thoughts about “The devil wears prada”. First of all I apologize to all my readers because I am going to spoil the plot by describing what happens in the movie. But I don’t feel guilty because you should’nt probably see the movie in the first place.

The main actress in the movie right after deciding to take a break from her boyfriend sleeps with another guy, while inebriated, only to realize later on that she wants to go back to her boyfriend. And the boyfriend had nothing to do with the break. She is the one who changed and decided on a different kind of life. I agree that, technically, isn’t cheating but I still didn’t like her getting back with her boyfriend as the movie ends. It seemed to me that she played the field, found out what she liked and picked what she wanted.

That got me thinking. Are relationships like that? Is it like a job? Can you try different ones and pick something you like in the end? Go back to previous ones? The more I think about it, I think you can logically. But my hunch is, you cant. The gut feeling is that something is not right there. Open question. I have no answers!

Renew

I have a feeling that life is all about redefining who you are. When I look back at my life there have been significant periods when I changed almost instantly into someone else. It is almost as if the pressure to change keeps building up and building up till one instant you give up all that you held on to. You give up your inertia, you give up your ego, you give up your beliefs and say “I am ready to learn again”. I know I do not know everything in the world. I know that some of the things that I thought are true are really not.  And finally I am ready to face those fears and those issues and be honest and answer those questions I never did. Finally you sit down with those questions and answer them. You become a different person all together when you stare at those answers in front of you.

I do not mean that everything you held on to you give up. There are ofcourse your family and friends and some values that you keep.  But you actually give up a lot of beliefs. You start dreaming again. You start believing again that you can be whoever or what ever you want to be. You end up looking back at your life and say wow that was long journey and I still have “many miles to go before I sleep”.

I am not sure how this works with others but for me to change, I need to get out of what ever I was in first. I had leave my family to understand how important they were to me. I had get really really far from my friends to appreciate them. I had forget about my values and beliefs to find out which were the ones that were important to me and I wanted to keep. I had to stop coding to realize that I like coding. I had to be out of India to understand how much I want go back and make difference!

I understand now, that we get just once chance to live a life and you need to make most of it. I started to belive again that it is alright to fail. It is alright to make mistakes. The problem with working in an office is that life gets too structured for you to be flexible enough to learn. I think that everyone should take some time out to evaluate who they are and become who they want to be.

Continous effort

Genius is only the power of making continuous efforts,
A little more effort and what seemed like hopeless failure
May turn into glorious success
There is no failure except in no longer trying,
There is no defeat except from within,
No really insurmountable barrier,
Save your own inherent weakness of purpose.

—Engraved on a brass plate on my father’s desk

Duke BME graduate program has hit me with all it’s rigours and meticulous hard work. I have to go through three very very technical papers, where I do not understand a single equation and come up with a project proposal in the next 10 hours.

That is all I have to say.

MBA and work experience

Many people have asked me if work experience is really important when you go for an MBA. I asked many people too when I was back in India and I was contemplating an MBA abroad right after college or after a year of work. While I was asking around I heard the usual advice that when you think about an European or an American MBA it really helps to have some work experience. After coming here I think that is quite true. The average age of people in an MBA program here is around 28. Most people have over 5 years of work experience. The advice normally revolves around the fact that you will learn more and contribute better when you too have similar work experience and are of a similar age. I think this point is very important and accurate but I have another view point to add as well.

Most MBA students are kind of grown up in many ways. They have reached a level of thinking that’s mature. The kind of parties and events that MBA students have are more of a networking kind. Most people come with their families and at times discuss politics. This is fun at times but is definitely grown up.

Contrast this with the kind of parties that you would go to when you are doing your under graduation or graduation(MS). At this stage I feel that it is more of the simple kind of fun which does not have any motive other than having fun. Sometimes I feel it pays to not grow up too fast. You are young only once and only when you are young can you do the things that young people do.

My message is aimed at all the people who really want to get ahead in life fast and by doing that miss out on all the fun that is possible when you struggle to get there.